Pages

Saturday, August 27, 2016

"I will...sanctify to thee thy deepest distress"

I'll be really honest when I say that I have had a stressful time adjusting to moving to Arizona. I moved 1000 miles from almost everyone I know, started graduate level schooling, started a new job, met a few new people, and came down with a sinus infection in the last 14 days. Needless to say, my stress has been through the roof at times, and has caused some mental fatigue.

I have been stressed, and wanting to do things with people, while knowing people next to not at all, making it difficult for me to even dream of actually doing stuff with them, even when I have an invite. While amid all this stress, the song "How Firm a Foundation" randomly entered my head, but especially the rarely sung fourth verse came to me:

When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of sorrow shall not thee o'erflow,
For I will be with thee, thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

And boy have I felt like I've been flooded by the waters of life! But the promise made in the verse is the Lord will make our deep distress holy. How? By drawing us unto Him. For Christ himself spoke of His deepest distress, "I had been lifted up upon the cross, that I might draw all men unto me" (3 Nephi 27:14). Because he went through distress, we have someone we can run to! He will not leave us alone. Why? So He can make us holy.